China’s nuclear waste dump

Press, 27 April 1984, Page 12

China’s nuclear waste dump

The proposal that radioactive waste from nuclear reactors be stored in the Gobi Desert in China needs widespread discussion and agreement before further steps are taken. It should certainly not be a matter merely between a West German fuel firm, or an Austrian nuclear power station, and China. Although China has joined the International Atomic Energy Agency, it is a recent member. It is far from clear to what extent China would allow international supervision of the storage of nuclear waste. China has not signed the Non-Proliferation Treaty, the most important international nuclear arms control treaty. It would be intolerable for China to be an important part of the international nuclear power cycle and not to have signed the Non-Proliferation Treaty. The Chinese Foreign Minister, Wu Xueqian, said that China would take the study of the use of the Gobi Desert very seriously and cautiously, considering all the technical problems entailed. Technical and political questions, and questions of the health and survival of mankind are involved for the rest of the world, as well as for China. Fuel used in a nuclear reactor has many radioactive elements remaining in it. The fuel can be reprocessed to be used again as nuclear fuel; plutonium 239, a source material for nuclear weapons, can be extracted. The reprocessing industry is large and profitable, and would not willingly release to China the material that can be reprocessed. If all this material, or even a substantial quantity, went to China, China could dominate the world market in the supply of reprocessed fuel. China would also acquire huge amounts of the source material for nuclear weapons. This would undoubtedly make China the centre of attention for any country that wanted to develop nuclear weapons. When the reprocessed fuel has been used in reactors, the waste still contains high-level radioactive products, including strontium 90. Most countries which have nuclear reactors store this waste in liquid form and allow it to cool. A number of proposals have been made about what to do with this further waste, and some have been employed. One proposal is to evaporate the radioactive material out of the liquid, encase it in vitreous material, and store it in some stable geological structure. A few areas of the world have been identified as being sufficiently stable to retain the radioactive material until it has passed the dangerous stage. Almost certainly, the proposal would be

for China to store the waste encased in ceramic or other material. It is still dangerous stuff and the storing and accounting for it should be controlled by international agreements and supervision. Commercial reasons for finding somewhere to store the final nuclear wastes abound. The two main problems facing the nuclear reactor industry are the fear of accidents and waste disposal. Failures of reactors are extremely rare but, after the failure at Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania, the possibility of failure looms large in the minds of many people. The Metropolitan Edison Corporation has admitted that it falsified safety test records for three months before the accident at Three Mile Island. Public concern about such doctoring of records is completely justified. Public opinion polls in the United States have shown that as many as 50 per cent of the population are opposed to nuclear power. California has banned all construction of new reactors until the Federal Government finds a safe way of getting rid of nuclear waste. The concern of the public, and public participation in hearings on the sitings of nuclear reactors, have meant long delays in construction and increased costs. The higher costs, combined with a sluggish demand for electricity, have produced severe financial problems for the industry. The electric power companies in the United States have not ordered a single new nuclear plant since 1978. Reasons abound for hoping that the problem of storing nuclear wastes will be solved. One of the most important is the effect on the world’s environment of thermal power stations burning fossil fuels. These produce carbon dioxide, which can slowly alter the composition of the atmosphere and perhaps cause the Earth to become warmer and possibly produce droughts. Fossil fuels can also produce sulphur dioxide, which forms the acid rain that is destroying forests and other life in parts of the world. These effects carry significant dangers for the whole of the world. The other main reason is that, although the nuclear reactor industry has had limited growth, it is still a useful and important industry. In the United States alone more than 80 nuclear reactors are producing 13 per cent of the country’s electricity. Something has to be done with the waste from these reactors. None of these reasons mean, however, that there should be any haste about the storing of nuclear waste in the Gobi Desert.